Fracas and Friends

Hey, everyone – for those who “do” Thanksgiving, I hope it was a nice one. Carolyn and I cooked several delicious dishes here, including dessert. On my gratitude list was the fact that I didn’t have to leave the house on one of the busiest travel holidays of the year in the U.S.

So a few weeks ago, Fracas popped into my head, as these things do. I was lamenting the fact that I’d owned and then swapped away my bottle. I loved the way it smelled, but I’d become hypernosmic to it, and even spraying in the air and walking through was too much. It wasn’t a vintage bottle, I think I picked it up years ago at … Sephora? Can that be right? That’s what I’m remembering, unlikely as it seems. Carolyn saw me poking around her collection to see if she had a bottle, and we talked about scent memories.

A week or so later, a tiny package showed up in the mail for Carolyn, and she handed it to me … I bet you can guess where this is going, can’t you? Yes, it was a mini (5ml?) splash bottle of vintage Fracas parfum.

Piguet’s Fracas was launched in 1948; the nose was the esteemed Germaine Cellier. Technically, it’s one of those kitchen-sink fragrances with fruits and green notes and a musky-woody base, but in practice it’s a ginormous tuberose plus jasmine, muguet, gardenia etc., and probably wearable (bearable?) only if you really like big white flower fragrances. Which, fortunately, I do. If Fracas were a color it would be bright pink, like the frame around the lettering on the bottle’s label.

Well. Of course I had to put some on immediately (good thing I wasn’t heading to the gym, eh?) I think the top notes are just a hair off, and it doesn’t have that almost bubblegum sweetness at first blast, but I can’t decide how much of that is vintage and how much is dabbing vs. spraying.

That drydown, though? It is glorious — even better than I remember, less powdery and much richer, with an almost buttery aspect. It’s not the sillage monster that Fracas can be when sprayed; but it’s hardly a timid little thing either. I could smell the two tiny dabs I’d put on my wrist the next day.

There are several of these wee bottles for sale on eBay and I’ve already bought a backup.

How do you feel about Fracas? Has anyone tried Petit Fracas, the 2012 fruity-floral interpretation by Aurélien Guichard? I know Portia’s a fan. How about the eau fraiche? Aren’t friends the best? Have you been gifted something you loved from a friend, just because?

(images via Pexels, plus mine of the bottle)